Female physicians face enduring wage gap

Male physicians make more money than female physicians, and that seems to be a rule with few exceptions. Among the 50 largest metro areas, there were none where women earn as much as men, according to a new survey by the medical social network Doximity.

The metro area that comes the closest is Las Vegas, where female physicians earned 20% less – that works out to $73,654 – than their male counterparts in 2017. Rochester, N.Y., had the smallest gap in terms of dollars ($68,758) and the second-smallest percent difference (21%), Doximity said in its 2018 Physician Compensation Report.

The largest wage gap on both measures can be found in Charleston, S.C., where women earned 37%, or $134,499, less than men in 2017. The other members of the largest-wage-gap club are as follows: Kansas City, Mo., and Nashville, Tenn., both had differences of 32%, and Providence, R.I., and Riverside, Calif., had differences of 31%, Doximity said in the report, which was based on data from “compensation surveys completed in 2016 and 2017 by more than 65,000 full-time, licensed U.S. physicians who practice at least 40 hours per week.”

A quick look at the 2016 data shows that the wage gap between female and male physicians increased from 26.5% to 27.7% in 2017, going from more than $92,000 to $105,000. “Medicine is a highly trained field, and as such, one might expect the gender wage gap to be less prominent here than in other industries. However, the gap endures, despite the level of education required to practice medicine and market forces suggesting that this gap should shrink,” Doximity said.